Background

Notes and format last updated May 7, 2020

Starting on the May 7th update, the NY Times began including probable covid cases/deaths along with confirmed. This mostly affects death counts – for certain geographies that include probable COVID deaths in addition to confirmed, these are now added to the totals. For the time being, they were all added to the May 6th totals, causing a big spike at the U.S. level. Over time, NY Times will revise their historical counts and distribute these added deaths when they actually occurred, so the spike should fade.

Growth rates

Heat maps

  • The two heat maps below compare how quickly total cases or deaths have grown at various times in our respective geopgraphies.
  • The first plot compares growth rate for total cases; the second, growth rate for total deaths.
  • The metric used is doubling time, by which I mean how quickly total cases or deaths are doubling.
  • The plots track that doubling time at each date for our geographies. Darker colors reflect shorter doubling times, and thus periods of faster growth.
    • You can use the plots to track each geography over time and to compare the geographies to one another.
    • You can also compare the cases and death charts, to see how faster periods of death growth follow faster periods of case growth.

Case growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new cases for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total cases and new cases.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of cases, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new cases) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new case reporting at the state level.
    • For total cases, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total cases have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total case line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new cases, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total cases, we want to watch for the lines for new cases to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new cases on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

Death growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new deaths for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total deaths and new deaths.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of deaths, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new deaths) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new death reporting at the state level.
    • For total deaths, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total deaths. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total deaths have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total death line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new deaths, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new deaths. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total deaths, we want to watch for the lines for new deaths to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new deaths on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

By population rankings

This section tracks metrics for states and counties normalized for population (number of cases or deaths per million residents), and then compares these figures both for our geographies and the country overall.

States

  • This section shows tables ranking all 50 states for per populations rates of total cases, new cases, total deaths, and new deaths.
  • For each metric, in addition to the tables, the trends for the top states are plotted over time.
    • We only plot the top ten states for each metric so that the plots aren’t too crowded. But you can view the full 50-state rankings in the tables.

Total confirmed cases

Table of total confirmed cases per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Cases Per Million
1 North Dakota 133,495
2 South Dakota 131,092
3 Rhode Island 126,528
4 Utah 119,087
5 Tennessee 115,279
6 Arizona 114,956
7 Oklahoma 110,046
8 Iowa 109,733
9 Arkansas 108,922
10 Wisconsin 108,201
11 Nebraska 107,073
12 South Carolina 105,308
13 Alabama 104,376
14 Kansas 104,206
15 Mississippi 101,786
16 Indiana 101,259
17 Idaho 99,564
18 Nevada 97,843
19 New Jersey 97,840
20 Illinois 96,797
21 Montana 96,584
22 Wyoming 96,292
23 Georgia 96,190
24 Texas 95,129
25 Kentucky 95,064
26 Delaware 94,919
27 Louisiana 94,877
28 Missouri 94,343
29 Florida 93,641
30 California 92,263
31 New York 91,907
32 New Mexico 90,561
33 Minnesota 89,800
34 Massachusetts 89,354
35 North Carolina 86,127
36 Ohio 85,652
37 Connecticut 84,051
38 Alaska 83,431
39 Colorado 78,670
40 Pennsylvania 77,614
41 West Virginia 77,059
42 Virginia 70,993
43 Michigan 69,771
44 Maryland 66,310
45 District of Columbia 61,470
46 New Hampshire 59,387
47 Washington 47,108
48 Puerto Rico 43,322
49 Oregon 38,361
50 Maine 36,186
51 Vermont 28,588
52 Hawaii 20,419

New confirmed cases

Table of new cases per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Cases Per Million
1 New Jersey 423
2 Rhode Island 314
3 Michigan 306
4 Connecticut 278
5 Delaware 271
6 New York 262
7 Massachusetts 260
8 Vermont 238
9 South Carolina 220
10 Pennsylvania 209
11 Minnesota 205
12 West Virginia 187
13 Florida 185
14 New Hampshire 184
15 South Dakota 171
16 District of Columbia 164
17 Alaska 159
18 Colorado 156
19 Kansas 155
20 Maryland 154
21 Tennessee 153
22 North Carolina 152
23 Virginia 147
24 Maine 141
25 Georgia 131
26 Illinois 119
27 Idaho 118
28 Nebraska 112
29 Ohio 110
30 Indiana 107
31 Utah 104
32 Montana 101
33 Iowa 96
34 Louisiana 95
35 Texas 95
36 Washington 91
37 Kentucky 90
38 Puerto Rico 88
39 Wyoming 85
40 New Mexico 82
41 Alabama 81
42 North Dakota 81
43 Oklahoma 80
44 Wisconsin 77
45 Arizona 76
46 Missouri 71
47 Nevada 71
48 Mississippi 68
49 California 59
50 Oregon 57
51 Hawaii 55
52 Arkansas 47

Total deaths

Table of total deaths per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Deaths Per Million
1 New Jersey 2,722
2 New York 2,516
3 Rhode Island 2,458
4 Massachusetts 2,451
5 Mississippi 2,337
6 Arizona 2,300
7 Connecticut 2,199
8 South Dakota 2,173
9 Louisiana 2,157
10 Alabama 2,128
11 North Dakota 1,957
12 Pennsylvania 1,940
13 Indiana 1,923
14 New Mexico 1,857
15 Illinois 1,844
16 Arkansas 1,837
17 Iowa 1,799
18 South Carolina 1,753
19 Tennessee 1,700
20 Georgia 1,694
21 Michigan 1,692
22 Nevada 1,679
23 Kansas 1,664
24 Texas 1,642
25 Delaware 1,572
26 Ohio 1,568
27 Florida 1,526
28 District of Columbia 1,487
29 California 1,461
30 West Virginia 1,457
31 Missouri 1,437
32 Maryland 1,353
33 Montana 1,323
34 Kentucky 1,308
35 Wisconsin 1,243
36 Minnesota 1,214
37 Oklahoma 1,210
38 Wyoming 1,197
39 Virginia 1,186
40 Nebraska 1,160
41 North Carolina 1,131
42 Idaho 1,090
43 Colorado 1,067
44 New Hampshire 895
45 Washington 687
46 Puerto Rico 656
47 Utah 643
48 Oregon 563
49 Maine 542
50 Alaska 404
51 Vermont 350
52 Hawaii 318

New deaths

Table of new deaths per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Deaths Per Million
1 Kentucky 7
2 Massachusetts 4
3 Delaware 3
4 Louisiana 3
5 South Carolina 3
6 Arizona 2
7 California 2
8 Georgia 2
9 Maryland 2
10 New Jersey 2
11 Rhode Island 2
12 Texas 2
13 West Virginia 2
14 Arkansas 1
15 District of Columbia 1
16 Florida 1
17 Illinois 1
18 Indiana 1
19 Michigan 1
20 Mississippi 1
21 Montana 1
22 Nevada 1
23 New Mexico 1
24 New York 1
25 North Carolina 1
26 South Dakota 1
27 Vermont 1
28 Virginia 1
29 Alabama 0
30 Alaska 0
31 Colorado 0
32 Connecticut 0
33 Hawaii 0
34 Idaho 0
35 Iowa 0
36 Kansas 0
37 Maine 0
38 Minnesota 0
39 Missouri 0
40 Nebraska 0
41 New Hampshire 0
42 North Dakota 0
43 Ohio 0
44 Oklahoma 0
45 Oregon 0
46 Pennsylvania 0
47 Puerto Rico 0
48 Tennessee 0
49 Utah 0
50 Washington 0
51 Wisconsin 0
52 Wyoming 0

Counties

  • This section focuses on the county level. It shows tables with our counties ranked by percentile of U.S. counties for per population rates of total cases and total deaths.
    • Each table also shows the top five counties in the country in addition to our counties, for added perspecive.
  • In addition to the tables, our counties’ percentile for both total cases and total deaths are plotted over time.

Confirmed cases

Table showing total cases per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Cases Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Crowley Colorado 350,437 1 99
Chattahoochee Georgia 311,176 2 99
Bent Colorado 266,093 3 99
Dewey South Dakota 243,551 4 99
Lincoln Arkansas 243,550 5 99
Davidson Tennessee 134,187 210 93
Richland South Carolina 103,938 1040 66
York South Carolina 100,029 1219 61
Orange California 83,399 1997 36
Pierce Washington 45,410 2905 7

Our county percentiles over time

Deaths

Table showing total deaths per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Deaths Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Gove Kansas 8,346 1 99
Jerauld South Dakota 7,948 2 99
Galax city Virginia 7,878 3 99
Foard Texas 7,792 4 99
Emporia city Virginia 7,669 5 99
Orange California 1,451 1789 43
Davidson Tennessee 1,268 2011 35
Richland South Carolina 1,256 2036 35
York South Carolina 1,239 2061 34
Pierce Washington 660 2719 13

Our county percentiles over time

Raw counts

Total confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Total deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Stay-at-home comparisons